Deuteronomy 7: Lessons Regarding What Should Follow When You Follow the Ten Commandments Out of Love, Not Obligation

Introduction: In the original Hebrew Torah, the text had no chapter breaks, headings, or line numbers. The Torah was instead divided up and written on separate scrolls. What today is referred to as Deuteronomy chapter seven marked the beginning of a new scroll following the Ten Commandments and the first part of the Shema, the Jewish call to worship. The first word of chapter seven in Hebrew is Ekev or “because.” That is also the title of the scroll. The chapter stated all the things that should follow in your life “because” an observant believer has learned the Ten Commandments and made a meaningful vow to follow them out of love. This study looks at the seven things that follow “because” of your love for God and His Law. First, with your knowledge of the Law, you are called to be sanctified or set apart from the unholy world around you. Second, with your knowledge of the Law, you are called upon to be “salt” in the world around you. This means that your presence should sting in the open wounds of sin in the society around you. Third, you are called upon to be humble as you act as God’s representative. Fourth, you are called upon to be an example of His light by having faith or hope in His promises to love and protect you. Fifth, separate and apart from your salvation, He promises to bless your life in seven ways if you follow His Law with the right motivation. Sixth, He calls upon you to be patient. He answers prayers based upon both His will and His timeline. Finally, He warns you to be wise or wary at all times. If you fail to listen to His words and follow the Law and remove sinful influences in your life, your sins will ultimately ensnare you.

1. Be Sanctified: Be Set Apart From the Things of the World. Dt. 7:1-6.

2. Be Salt: God Also Wants You To Fight the Evil Around You. Dt. 7:5-6.

3. Be Humble: God Blessed You With Things That You Do Not Deserve. Dt. 7:7-8.

4. Be Hopeful: God is Faithful to Keep His Promises. Dt. 7:9-11.

Place your hope and trust in God’s faithfulness1

5. Be Blessed: God’s Seven Blessings if You Keep His Law Out of Love. Dt. 7:12-26.

(1) The promise of the covenant of peace. Dt. 7:12. God’s Law was never meant to be a burden. Instead, it provides the covenant of His protection: “Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers.” (Dt. 7:12). The “covenant” God promised was, among other things, a “convent of peace” (Nu. 25:12). If the Jews followed His Law, He promised to give them peace (Lev. 26:6). This included a general promise that things “may be well with you.” (Dt. 6:33). This includes a “clear conscience.” (1 Cor. 4:4). This also included fellowship with Him (Lev. 3:1-16). The Jews were then intended to represent His covenant of peace to the other nations: “I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, and I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations.” (Is. 42:6).

(2) God’s promise to multiply His people. Dt. 7:13(a). If the Jews followed God’s Law, He further promised that they would be blessed and multiply as a nation: “He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb . . .” (Dt. 7:13(a); 6:3; Lev. 26:9-10). He showed this blessing to be true for the Jewish nation. As stated above, the Jews first left Israel with only 70 people (Gen. 46:27). After approximately 400 years in captivity and two years in the wilderness, God told Moses to assemble and count the men of fighting age who would invade the Promised Land (Nu. 1:1). At that time, the men of fighting age totaled 603,550 (Num. 1:46). God had greatly blessed the nation of Israel. Yet, this blessing of growth was conditional. The Jews rebelled during their 40-year-march through the wilderness. By the end of their year journey, the men of fighting age totaled 601,730 (Nu. 26:51). This was a decrease of 1,820 fighting aged men. If they had been obedient they would have continued to grow in number.

(3) The promise of economic blessings. Dt. 7:13(b)-14. God also promised to bless the Jewish economy if the nation as a whole followed the Law: “He will also bless . . . your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.” (Dt. 7:13(b)-14; Lev. 26:3-5). God also did not limit the ways that He might bless the Jews.

A nation which walks with God will be blessed2

(4) The promise of healing. Dt. 7:15. God also promised that obedience could bring healing: “The Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you.” (Dt. 7:15). “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer.” (Ex. 15:26).

Turn to God when you need to be healed3

(5) The promise of victory. Dt. 7:16. If the Jews followed God’s Law out of love, He also promised victory over their enemies. “You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.” (Dt. 7:16; Lev. 26:7-8; Ex. 23:22, Nu 10:9, 35; Isa. 54:17). When you take refuge in His Law out of love, He also promises to be a shield to the evil attacks of the enemy: “Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.” (Prov. 30:5; 2 Sam. 22:31). With only a few hundred men, God allowed Gideon to defeat thousands of Israel’s enemies (Jdgs. 8:10). With His help, Jonathon also killed many Philistines (1 Sam. 14:12). He also allowed David to kill Goliath (1 Sam. 17:50-58). He does not want us to fear any evil, person or enemy (Rom. 8:15). Even though the enemy might rob you or cause you embarrassment, God may still spare you from physical harm. A thief cannot steal your treasures if they are stored in heaven (Matt. 6:19-21). Like the Jews, we are also commanded to “fight the good fight of faith . . . ” (1 Tim. 6:12). We are called to fight in God’s army (2 Tim. 2:3). If a nation submits to God, it should also expect Him to protect it from its enemies.

(6) The promise of a spirit of strength. Dt. 7:17-20. If the Jews followed the Law out of love, God also encouraged them that they had no reason to fear the evil around them: “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’ you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet against them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish.” (Dt. 7:17-20). Besides developing a love for evil things, there is nothing that you should fear: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread?. . . Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war arises against me, in spite of this I shall be confident.” (Ps. 27:1-3). “I fear no evil, for you are with me.” (Ps. 23:4). “How blessed is the man that fears the Lord . . . He will not fear evil tidings” (Ps. 112:7). “Say to the anxious heart, ‘take courage, fear not.” (Is. 34:4). “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.” (Lk. 12:4). By contrast, if you fear mankind, you can become enslaved by the devil to your fears “[t]he fear of man brings a snare. . . ” (Prov. 29:25). Fear of the people or the things of the world also leads to “spirit of slavery.” (Rom. 8:15). If the Jews knew God’s love for them, they would not have feared. For there is nothing “able to separate us from the love of God.” (Rom. 8:38). God’s “perfect love casts out fear. . . ” (1 Jo. 4:18). Is the devil controlling you with fear in any area of your life? If so, rebuke the devil in Jesus’ name and ask God in faith to cast out your fear.

(7) The promise that God will be with you. Dt. 7:21. If the Jews followed God’s law, God also promised to dwell with His people. “You shall not dread them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.” (Dt. 7:21; Lev. 26:11). God has also promised that He will never leave you nor forsake you (Dt. 31:6; Heb. 13:5).

6. Be Patient: God will Fulfill His Promises in His Timing. Dt. 7:22-24.

7. Be Wary and Wise: Separate from the World or it Will Ensnare You. Dt. 7:25-26.

Be set apart from unholy influences4